Healing Hands
by chocolatequeen
Summary: Love shows itself most clearly in a desire to help each other in vulnerable moments. When Rose lets the Doctor help her with her migraines, she starts a chain of events that will result in them both opening up to each other and finally, allowing themselves to fall in love. Both 9/Rose and 10/Rose.
1. Chapter 1

Rose stumbled the last few steps toward the TARDIS. Inside, the cool, blueish green light of the TARDIS was a welcome relief, but the vibrating thrum of the console sent a bolt of searing pain through her head, and she barely managed to hold back a whimper. Chasing today's tyrannical dictator through a club had triggered her first migraine in years.

"Right then Rose," the Doctor said as he flipped a lever and sent them into the vortex. "Where to next?"

Rose shook her head and smiled wanly. "I'm sorta tired, Doctor," she said, trying not wince at the sound of her own voice. "S'pose we could maybe rest for a bit?"

His sharp blue eyes looked her up and down, and Rose put every ounce of energy she had into looking healthy. Apparently it worked, because he rolled his eyes teasingly and said, "Don't know how you humans manage with such rubbish physiology."

If Rose had been feeling better, she might have been tempted to stick her tongue out at him—not that she would, but sometimes the impulse was hard to resist. Today she just smiled gratefully and started down the corridor toward her room.

Each step she took jolted her aching head, and a wave of nausea swept over her. As soon as she was out of the Doctor's sight, Rose stepped and rested her forehead against the cool walls, drawing deep breaths in an attempt to avoid throwing up.

"Don't suppose you could move my room closer?" Rose said, more to herself than to the TARDIS. Her jaw dropped when a door appeared beside her; the Doctor said his ship was telepathic, but she'd never really believed him until now.

The ship's hum now sounded distinctly smug, and ill as she was, Rose still managed to roll her eyes. "Yeah, all right—you're…"

The grudging praise died on her lips when she realised the door opened onto the library, not her room. "Wrong landings must be something you have in comment," she muttered and turned to walk away.

But the stubborn ship tilted in the vortex, and suddenly Rose didn't care what room she was in as long as she could lay down. The cough in front of the fireplace was as good a place as any, and she shuffled across the room and collapsed onto it. Shivering and barely coherent, she tugged the afghan over her body and closed her eyes.

The Doctor watched Rose leave the control room with a concerned expression she completely missed. Her false bravado hadn't fooled him, and he berated himself for pushing her too hard. _She's just tired_, he told himself. _Nothing a few days won't fix._

But without a new destination driving him forward, the emptiness of his mind caught up to him. As long as he stayed busy, he could ignore the way his thoughts echoed in his head, now devoid of other Time Lords.

He shook his head resolutely and kneeled down on the grating. Repair work should keep his thoughts at bay, and in a ship over 1000 years old, there was always something to be done.

In tune with his ship as he was, he noticed her change in tone from indignant to concerned immediately. "What is it, Old Girl?" he asked, standing up and brushing his knees off. With a not-so-gentle telepathic nudge, she sent him down the corridor to a door he knew hadn't been there before.

Finding the library on the other side of the door wasn't a surprise—after 700 years, he'd grown accustomed to his ship occasionally moving things around. Finding Rose on the couch was a surprise however. "Rose? I thought you were going to bed."

She pulled the afghan up so it nearly covered her entire head, but it was the whimper of pain that sent fear knifing through him. "Rose? What's the matter?"

Her only response was to curl into a ball, and he was at her side in seconds. Rose's normally pink complexion was now chalk white, and her eyes were screwed up tight, putting a little furrow of pain in the middle of her forehead. The Doctor placed a hand there and let out a breath of relief when he didn't find a fever. "What's the matter?" he repeated, his Northern accent deep with concern.

She opened her eyes just a crack. "Migraine," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "Could never go clubbing. Jimmy'd make me go to his gigs and always hated how sick it made me."

Normally, mention of Rose's ex-boyfriend inspired violent fantasies in which he parked the TARDIS in London, 2003, and threatened to beat the tosser to within an inch of his life if he touched Rose again. But this time, her pain was his fault. He'd been just as bad as Jimmy Stones, and the thought made him sick.

Guilt made his voice gruff when he asked, "Why didn't you say something?"

Rose shrugged, her eyes closed again. "We couldn't let him go. He'd been running that slave operation on the side. Think of all the girls his men caught and sold."

The Doctor's face tightened into grim lines. Oh, he'd thought about it. That was why he hadn't let Rose out of his sight the entire time they'd been on the planet. Her blonde hair would have made her a prime target.

"I'll bring you some pain medication," he said abruptly, trying to ignore the thought of Rose being sold to slavers. She barely nodded in acknowledgement, and his concern ratcheted up a few notches.

He found what he needed in the infirmary and stopped in the kitchen for a glass of water. When he returned to the dimly lit library, Rose hadn't moved. "You'll need to sit up to take this," he said quietly.

"Hurts to move," she mumbled.

"Yeah, I know it does, but this'll help you feel better in a few hours."

One brown eye peeked out from under the afghan. "Promise?"

"Cross my hearts."

She sighed and tried to sit up, but flopped back onto the couch. "So dizzy."

Without a thought, the Doctor slipped his arm around her back and propped her up. He handed her the pill first, then the glass, and watched as she took it.

"D'you want me to turn the lamp off?" he asked after he set the glass down on the end table.

"Nah… s'ok," she murmured. "Some light doesn't hurt, not like sounds. Noise in the control room hurt."

_So that was why she'd beat such a hasty retreat after her return._ Suddenly he realised all his prattling was probably making her feel worse. "Right then, guess I'll go and let you rest."

She caught the sleeve of his jumper before he could walk away. "Stay, Doctor."

"Doesn't my talking make your head hurt?"

Rose shook her head slightly, and when he saw her grimace, he reached out automatically and started rubbing soft circles just above her temple.

She sighed softly and leaned into his touch. "Stay," she repeated. "Doesn't hurt when you talk. Maybe you could tell me a story… and keep doing that."

Staying with Rose while she was ill, massaging her headache away, it was an impossibly intimate, domestic idea. But the furrow of pain on her brow had eased a little, and he felt some pride in that. "Budge up then," he ordered, helping her sit up enough that he could sit on the couch, then gently positioning her aching head in his lap.

He carded his fingers through her bottle blonde hair, letting the strands float softly back into place. "What story would you like to hear?" he asked.

Rose shifted a little, so his long, elegant fingers would rub the right spot on her scalp to ease as much pain as possible. "Dunno," she replied. "But your voice makes me feel better. S'like, the rumbling Northern burr drowns out the higher pitched sounds that hurt my head."

"That makes sense," he said, and she could picture him tilting his head slightly as he considered. "The frequency of the sound waves…"

She opened her eyes and raised an eyebrow. "Doctor, I already have a headache. No science. Just… tell me an Earth story, something that'll be familiar."

There was a long pause, in which his fingers thankfully did not stop moving. She finally opened her eyes a crack to peer up at him. "Unless you don't know any?"

He snorted in indignation, as she'd known he would. "I know plenty of stories, me," he said. "Even have a few books memorised. I'm just trying to make sure I don't pick something from your future."

Rose rolled her eyes, then groaned at the pain that caused. "Fine then, Time Lord," she groused. "Tell me about your favourite planet instead—the most beautiful place you've ever seen."

His fingers stilled, and Rose suddenly felt the enormity of her request. She'd asked a man who'd lost his home to describe his favourite place.

He started talking before she could suggest a different topic. "The grass is red, and on the plains, it comes up to your knees. The trees are silver against a burnt orange sky, and everything just…" He blew out a hard breath. "When the wind comes down the mountains, the trees shake in the breeze, and it looks like a thousand pieces of crystal dancing in the light."

The quiet, reverent words and long, smooth strokes of his fingers eased Rose into an almost trancelike state. She swore for a moment that she could see it, just as he described, and she sighed, feeling a bit melancholy that she'd never see it in reality.

"Too much?" he asked, his fingers stilling for a moment.

"No," she whispered. "Don't stop there." She could feel some of the tension leaving his body as he talked, and knew it was good for him to share this even if they were both pretending he wasn't talking about his lost home. "Where's your favourite spot, Doctor?"

"In the mountains," he said immediately, his fingers moving again. "From the right spot, you can look down and see the red plains, with the Citadel rising above it in the distance. You can smell the wild arkytior—that's rose, by the way—and hear the trees rustling in the wind."

"Sounds beautiful," Rose whispered, tears hidden behind her closed eyes.

"Yeah, I suppose," he agreed reluctantly, stroking across her forehead and rubbing the aching spot along her eyebrows. "Not someplace to take a human though—that lot is pretty prejudiced."

"Then were would you take me?" Rose asked, giving him permission to change the subject.

His questing fingers found the tender spot right between her eyes, and she groaned. "Rose?"

"M'fine, just be careful there." He held still for a moment, and afraid of losing this moment of intimacy, Rose asked, "Doctor? Where do you want to take me next?"

His fingers started moving again, carefully avoiding the pressure point. "Think we should visit Woman Wept," he said, pressing into a knot at the base of her skull.

She nearly purred when he worked the tension out of her neck. "What's that?" she asked.

"A planet. The entire ocean frozen in an instant, in the middle of a storm. You can see the waves locked in a moment of time."

Comfort swept over Rose in deep, languorous waves as the Doctor's hands moved up from her neck back into her hair. "Why's it called Woman Wept?"

She felt her hair slipping between his fingers again. "'Cause from above, the one continent looks like a woman weeping."

Rose hummed, but didn't say anything. Between the pain pill, Doctor's soothing voice, and his magic fingers, the pounding in her head had diminished enough to allow sleep.

"Rose?" she heard him whisper as she drifted off, but she just smiled in reply.

The Doctor stayed a while longer, just to be sure he didn't wake her up when he moved. His hands stroked her hair without any order from his brain, and he knew this evening had carefully, quietly torn down some of the walls he'd kept between them.

How had she done it? How had she gotten him to think about Gallifrey, much less talk about it? He looked down at his precious girl asleep in his lap with some amazement and a little bit of fear. No one had penetrated his barriers in so long; did he even know how to have a close relationship anymore? But how could he keep her out when she kept the pain at bay?

Carefully as he could, he slipped out from underneath Rose, finding a throw pillow to support her head and pulling the afghan up around her. "Sleep well, Rose," he whispered and left the library.


	2. Chapter 2

After that night, Rose thought the Doctor was just a little bit more open than he had been before. He shared pieces of his past with her, stories of the places he'd gone and the things he'd seen. And one night, after Jack had gone to bed and the Doctor and Rose were staring up at the fake night sky in the planetarium, he told her the name of his home: Gallifrey.

But he didn't tell her about regeneration, and when he burst into golden light in front of her, Rose felt lost. Jack was gone, and she was alone in the TARDIS with a man who claimed to be her best friend.

Even after she believed he was the Doctor, there was still an awkwardness between them, like new friends who weren't quite sure how to act with each other. They laughed and joked, but the long nights spent quietly talking were gone.

In all that time, Rose's migraines didn't return. It was the longest she'd ever gone without one, and she half suspected the Doctor purposely avoided taking them places that might trigger them.

But then on New Earth, which should have been a lark, an easy first trip with her new Doctor, Lady Cassandra compressed her brain with a psychograft. Rose managed to hold the pain at bay until they'd taken Cassandra back to her past, but when the Doctor sent the TARDIS into the Vortex, she couldn't stop the whimper that fell from her lips.

The Doctor looked up from the console, and Rose dimly registered concern on his face. "Go get comfortable," he said, and she wanted to cry at how soft and soothing his voice was. "I'll bring you a pain pill."

Rose nodded slowly, keeping the motion of her head at a minimum. But when she let go of the railing and took a step toward the corridor, the room spun around her. The Doctor swept her up before she could fall, and then her head was resting against his chest as he carried her to her room.

"How long as your head been hurting?" he asked quietly as he opened her door.

Her lights were set to the dimmest setting, giving Rose some relief after the brightness of the corridor. "Since she went into my head. An' it got worse every time she left and came back."

He set her down on the bed and opened the second drawer of her bureau. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"

Rose took the jimjams he held out and raised an eyebrow, wincing at the pain that move caused. He turned around and she started changing. "Didn't seem like much of a point," she said, answering his question to fill the awkward silence. "Why complain when we can't do anything about it?"

Her head was swimming by the time she'd finished changing, and she must have made some kind of sound, because the Doctor was there again, helping her recline back onto the pile of pillows at the head of her bed.

He straightened up and handed her a pill and a full glass of water. "Where'd this come from?" she mumbled.

"The TARDIS. She knows you're hurting." The Doctor glared at the wall. "She knew you were hurting before but she didn't tell me."

Rose nodded and took the medicine, expending a little of her mental energy to send a thanks to the ship. "We had to stop those cat nuns," she said wearily after she emptied the glass.

The Doctor took it from her, and then, to her surprise, he stretched out side her and tried to rearrange their positions. Rose resisted, wincing as that sent a bolt of pain through her head. "What're you doing?"

"Well, I can't very well massage your scalp with you sitting up like this," he pointed out. When Rose just stared at him, his expression fell. "Oh. But maybe—maybe you don't want that from me. I'll just…"

He swung his legs off the bed, and Rose grabbed his wrist. The wounded expression on his face was the same one she'd seen three weeks ago when she'd asked him to change back, and she couldn't bear the thought of hurting him again.

"Stay."

The Doctor looked at her over his shoulder, his expression open and vulnerable. "Rose, are you sure?"

She nodded. "Shoes off though."

He kicked off his Chucks and got back into bed, carefully repositioning Rose so her head rested on a pillow in his lap. "I just didn't know…" Rose bit her lip. "I didn't know if you'd still want…"

The Doctor sifted his hands through her hair, finding the pressure points he'd worked last time. "I'm him," he reminded Rose quietly, without any censure in his voice. Rose had adjusted to his regeneration so much better than he'd hoped—he just needed her to…

He shoved that longing back into the corner of his mind and focused on running his fingers over her scalp in long, smooth motions. Rose sighed and shifted her head slightly, and he took the hint, putting pressure on the spot she'd turned toward him.

"You're still really good at this," she murmured a few minutes later. "Is this something they teach you at Time Lord school?"

The Doctor blinked in surprise at the question. Since his regeneration, Rose had kept their conversations casual, not touching anything personal. _Maybe she's finally starting to believe I'm still the Doctor._

"Not hardly," he said, answering her question with a chuckle. "Skin to skin contact was discouraged on Gallifrey. You should have seen the gloves we wore to make sure we didn't accidentally touch someone."

"Why's that?"

He remembered a spot at the base of her skull that she'd particularly enjoyed last time and pressed both thumbs there, drawing a moan from Rose. "We were touch telepaths," he explained as he worked the knots out with firm strokes. "Touching someone skin to skin was almost indecently intimate."

Rose turned her head enough to look up at him. "But we touch and hold hands all the time."

Her tone was curious rather than suspicious, and the Doctor smiled as he stroked her forehead lightly, carefully avoiding the spot between her eyes that had hurt before. "True, but you aren't telepathic," he reminded her. "With humans, I'd need to have my hands right here," he ghosted his fingers over her temple, "to form a connection."

Rose's eyes fluttered shut, and her complete trust forced him to be honest. "But… sometimes I can… sort of get an idea of what you're feeling." Right now, he could feel contentment beneath the fading pain of the migraine, and he rubbed light circles around her temples, carefully avoiding the spot that would let him go deeper into her mind.

"That's all right, Doctor," Rose said sleepily. "I don't mind… I mean, I trust you with that."

The Doctor moved his hands to the crown of her head, using the lightest touch possible to relax the muscles and encourage her to fall asleep. When her breathing slowed, he stayed where he was, stroking her hair.

He'd told Rose part of the truth, but he hadn't told her the rest. True, she wasn't telepathic, so holding her hand or hugging her didn't form the kind of connection he would have found with another Time Lord or Gallifreyan. But if anyone from his home had seen the way the Doctor interacted with this human woman, they would have known exactly how he felt about her.

The fact of Rose's humanity couldn't override a millennium of social conditioning. Holding her hand meant _I trust you._ Hugging her and holding her tight meant _I love you._ And this, what he was doing right now? His fingers combed through her soft hair and he sighed. This meant _I am yours._

The Doctor shook his head. Thinking about how he felt about her didn't change the fact that Rose was human, with a human lifespan. If he let their relationship develop beyond friendship, the pain of losing her would be unbearable. He moved his hands to the pillow, intending to lift it just enough that he could slide out of the bed without waking her up.

Rose shifted in her sleep and slung her arm up across his lap. The Doctor stiffened momentarily, his self-preservation instinct warring with what he wanted to do. Then her hand found its place on his waist, and his resistance crumbled.

The Doctor stretched carefully and grabbed the duvet that was folded on the end of her bed. He tossed it over them both, then slid down so he was lying on his back, his head on one of the pillows. Rose curled into his side and he wrapped an arm around her, feeling a hint of misgiving at how natural the gesture was. The walls he'd put up to protect himself from a relationship with Rose were crumbling just as easily as his resistance had, but he couldn't bring himself to care.


	3. Chapter 3

Jackie listened in stunned silence as the Doctor explained why Mickey would never come home. Rose was still crying in her arms, and he was acutely aware that this was a level of domestics he would never have tolerated for anyone but her.

When he finished the story, Jackie frowned. "But why would he stay there, instead of coming home where everyone knows him?"

Rose looked up and wiped the tears from her eyes. "It was his gran, Mum. Remember his gran? She was still alive there, and I think… He always felt guilty for the way she died, tripping over that piece of carpet. This is his way of making up for that."

A strained note in the TARDIS' song pressed insistently on the Doctor's consciousness. He glanced over his shoulder at his ship, then back at Rose. They both needed him.

Rose smiled wanly. "It's okay, Doctor. Get her taken care of; the trip was hard on her, too."

The Doctor stood up and looked awkwardly at the Tyler women. He wanted to give Rose a hug, but making her stand up just to satisfy his own need to comfort her didn't seem right.

Sensing his uncertainty yet again, Rose held out a hand. He took it and squeezed gently, saying, "You know where to find me if you need me."

The lights in the console room were dim when he stepped inside. "All right, old girl," he murmured as he tossed his jacket over a strut and rolled his sleeves up. "Let's see how much damage that trip did to you."

Her answering hum sounded like a sigh of relief, and he understood why when he lowered himself beneath the grating and saw the mess of fried circuitry.

_Ah, I'm sorry, dear,_ he told her as he went to work, first removing wires that were too damaged to be repaired.

It was tedious work that resulted in more than a few singed fingers, but after five hours, he'd finally cleared out the worst of the mess. He still needed to replace the pieces he'd removed, but when he hefted himself out from beneath the console, his shoulders protested the motion.

"Ouch," he muttered, rotating his shoulders and neck to release the tension caused by too many hours hunched over in a cramped space. "Maybe I'll finish this up tomorrow."

The TARDIS hummed in encouragement, and with her permission, he left the console room heading for his bedroom. He hadn't slept properly since… in too long, and he could feel exhaustion creeping up on him.

DWDWDWDW

Rose lay flat on her back in her childhood bedroom, staring up at the ceiling. She looked over at the clock and groaned. Two in the morning. She just… couldn't sleep. _Not in this bed anyway,_ she thought and finally sat up and swung her legs out from under the covers.

Staying in the flat had been a concession to her mother's need to feel like Rose hadn't changed that much, but it clearly wasn't working. For almost two years, her sleep had been accompanied by the soft hum of the TARDIS, and she couldn't filter out the constant buzz of London's city noises anymore.

Rose didn't bother to pull a dressing gown on over her sleep shorts and vest top; she was only going from one bedroom to another. The ship hummed a greeting as she walked through the console room, and she ran her fingers along the wall of the corridor. _You're my home now, _she told the sentient time ship, enjoying the warm feeling that stole over her in response.

When Rose pushed open the door to her room, she took half a step back. This was not her room. She took in the clutter of furniture and TARDIS parts and the hologram of a starry sky above and thought she knew whose room it was.

_What are you up to?_ she asked, but before the ship could give any sort of answer, a whimper broke the silence.

Her feet carried her to the bed before she fully registered what she was doing. The fake stars above provided just enough light for her to see the Doctor's face, and the tense lines on his forehead made her heart ache.

Ever since Rose had woken up in the Doctor's arms the morning after New Earth, she'd been looking for a way to help him the way he'd helped her. This was her chance, but what could one human girl do to calm a Time Lord's nightmares?

The Doctor twisted in his sleep and the hand on top of his duvet clenched into a fist. Rose wiped her damp palms on her shorts, then took his hand and slowly uncurled his fingers until they were relaxed again.

She kept her eyes on his face; she'd read enough books to know people could act unpredictably when in the grips of a nightmare, and she didn't fancy getting hit if he struck out.

But the tension around his eyes softened, and the muscles in his forearm relaxed._ How…_

Then she remembered what he'd told her. Touch telepaths. _"Sometimes I can sort of… get an idea of what you're feeling." _

An idea came to her. She knelt beside the bed and moved her hand to his cheek, pressing it there firmly while concentrating hard on the most soothing, comforting feeling she could.

The Doctor drew in a deep breath, and Rose smiled. "Guess that works then," she whispered.

She remained kneeling by his bed for ten minutes, tracing her fingers over the arch of his left eyebrow, cupping the strong line of his jaw in her hand, and stroking his forehead. When all the lines had disappeared, she stood up, wincing a bit at the ache in her knees.

He was whimpering again before she reached the door, and she realised the nightmare wasn't going to give up so easily. _Yeah, well neither am I._

Rose returned to the bed and shoved all her insecurities into the back corner of her mind. Then she flipped the duvet up and climbed under it next to the Doctor. Her heart stopped for a moment when she realised he was only wearing a pair of thin pyjama bottoms. _Better this way though,_ she told herself as she shifted his left arm up so she could get as close to him as possible. _More skin to skin contact—that's the point, right?_

The Doctor tensed when she laid down next to him, and Rose nearly gave up on her plan. She placed a tentative palm on his chest, and he flinched as if he'd been burned. _Why isn't this working? _she wondered, hearing his breath hitch in a shuddering sob.

A moment later, it clicked. It was working, sort of. Only she wasn't relaxed right now; laying down next to the Doctor had her wound as tight as a bow string.

Rose closed her eyes and pulled up the memories of the few times she'd fallen asleep next to the Doctor. She breathed in the familiar honey scent of his skin and finally relaxed. The hand on his chest drifted down to his waist, and her thumb stroked his side.

_Sleep,_ she thought. _I've got you. I love you. You're safe. _

To her amazement, she felt the tension slowly ease out of his body. The arm she'd wrapped around her shoulders moved to hold her close, and he hummed softly.

Rose had planned to return to her own room as soon as he was sleeping comfortably, but after the adventure in the parallel universe, she needed comfort and rest too. Being curled up next to him felt so right; she was asleep before she realised it.

DWDWDWDW

The Doctor was aware of two things when he woke up. First, he felt more refreshed than he had since the morning after New Earth. Second, there was an unfamiliar weight resting on his chest. He opened his eyes and spotted a certain pink and yellow human fast asleep.

_Well, that would explain both things._

He could tell from the elevated levels of epinephrine lingering in his system that he'd had a nightmare, and his Rose had apparently decided the best way to soothe him out of it was to cuddle up next to him in bed.

Rose sighed in her sleep and nuzzled into his chest, and a third fact pressed itself insistently against the Doctor's awareness. With this much skin to skin contact, he could sense every one of her emotions in vivid, living colour.

His eyes drifted shut and he placed a kiss on top of her head. He'd tried so hard to act like he didn't know how she felt, because he'd known that once he accepted it, all the reasons he gave himself for why they couldn't be together would crumble.

The Doctor smiled wryly; he'd been right about that. Holding Rose, feeling the depth and commitment of her feelings for him, he knew a single word from her would make him hers.

He ran a hand through her hair, loving the way the silky strands felt as they slipped through his fingers. In response, Rose stretched and yawned, and he felt her moving toward consciousness.

Rose sighed and opened her eyes reluctantly. In her dreams, she'd been snuggled up next to the Doctor, and…

_And that is the Doctor's chest._

She registered his hand stroking her hair next and realised he was awake. He was awake, and she was pressed up next to his side, projecting all of her emotions onto him.

The Doctor's hand froze. "What's wrong, Rose?" he asked, and she hated the cautious note in his voice.

Part of her wanted to sit up so she could look at him, but the stronger instinct was to hide. She turned her face into his chest and muttered, "Nothing."

He sighed, and then she felt a hand under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. "No point in lying about how you're feeling when you're draped over me like this," he said gently.

Rose felt her face heat up. He'd made it clear back when they met Sarah Jane that even though he loved her, he wouldn't let himself be with her. She'd been determined after that not to make it difficult for him, but now here she was, sleeping beside him and telling him exactly how she felt.

He let go of her chin abruptly and a mask dropped over his face. "I thought you understood that when I woke up with you lying next to me. But maybe you didn't mean to be here when I woke up." He looked up at the ceiling, now showing a projection of a sunrise. "We can just forget this, if you want."

Rose frowned, trying to figure out what he was saying. Shouldn't she be the one offering to forget? Or apologising for making there be something that needed to be forgotten?

She raised herself up on one elbow, the other hand still resting on his chest. "I just… I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I know you can tell…" She swallowed and pushed back her embarrassment. "But you don't have to worry, I know you're not—that you don't want…"

The Doctor's gaze flew to Rose's face, and he took in her pink cheeks and the way she she refused to look at him. When she'd woken up and mortification had replaced the contentment she'd been projecting, he'd wondered if maybe she hadn't wanted him to know, for some reason.

_Or maybe she didn't think I'd want to know, and she was afraid to make me uncomfortable._

It was his decision, then. If he asked Rose to pretend this hadn't happened, she would. She didn't know that he'd already flown the white flag. Despite his earlier thoughts, it was tempting to retreat to the friendship they already had.

Timelines crystallised, and he realised this was a fork in the road. If he chose to continue on the path they were already on, there would never be another moment like this one.

Rose rolled over and climbed out of bed, and the Doctor felt the moment, the timeline where he was with Rose, slipping away. His throat constricted, and she had her hand on the door before he could get words out.

"Rose, wait."

She looked back at him warily, and the Doctor cursed himself and his rules for making her feel like letting him know… like this would be an imposition. He tossed the covers back and jumped out of bed, crossing the distance to the door in three easy strides.

But standing next to Rose, he couldn't find the words to explain that he'd changed his mind, that _she'd _changed his mind. What little hope there was in her eyes flickered out, and in desperation, he lifted his hand and placed it near her temple. If he couldn't tell her out loud, he could show her.

"May I?" he asked, following the courtesy of telepathic contact.

She nodded, and his fingers touched her temple. Connecting with her was easier than he'd expected it would be with a human, and he put that thought aside to examine later. Right now, he focused on letting her know how he felt. _You think I don't, but I do,_ he told her silently.

Rose gasped. Afraid he'd gone too far, the Doctor started to ease out of her mind. "Don't go," Rose begged, and he relaxed into the connection again.

_But I thought you didn't want this. Humans wither and die, right?_

The Doctor leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers. Being in Rose's mind was like seeing the first light of dawn after an impossibly long night. Her strength and compassion would have been enough to amaze him, but he didn't think he'd ever get over the feeling of being surrounded by her love.

_You do,_ he told her, answering her question. _And it's going to hurt so much when I lose you. That's why I want to have as many happy memories to look back on as possible._

Rose pulled back and looked him in the eye. "Are you sure? Because if we do this, Doctor, I can't go back to how things are now."

The Doctor lifted his fingers from her temple and brushed a piece of hair back over her ear. "I'm sure," he promised. "And you, Rose? How long are you going to stay with me?"

Rose placed her palms on his chest over his hearts and slowly slid them up until her hands were wrapped loosely around his neck. The Doctor sucked in a breath at the heady combination of emotion and sensation that rushed through him at the contact. He instinctively placed his hands on her waist, pulling her closer.

"Forever," she said firmly.

The Doctor was vaguely aware of their timelines twining together with that word, but he couldn't look away from Rose long enough to examine them closely. He brought a hand up to cup her jaw, and they moved together to seal their promises with a kiss.


End file.
